


Give Me Touch

by Dracarysforged



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Grief/Mourning, Hair Washing, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, John Watson Loves Sherlock Holmes, M/M, Pre-Slash, References to Addiction, References to Depression, Sherlock Holmes Loves John Watson, Sherlock is a little bit of a mess, but then again so is John Watson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:54:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24516469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dracarysforged/pseuds/Dracarysforged
Summary: A quiet moment in 221B Baker Street, John and Sherlock walking the tightrope of their own addictions. A little bit of forgiveness, a little bit of kindness, Sherlock’s honesty, and John’s gentle, steady hands.Love hunt me downI can't stand to be so dead behind the eyesAnd feed me, spark me upA creature in my bloodstream chews me upDaughter - “Touch”
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes & John Watson, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 7
Kudos: 53





	Give Me Touch

**Author's Note:**

> Errors are my own, not brit-picked
> 
> Post-season 4, very brief mention of the anniversary of Mary's death - John takes care of Sherlock after a relapse. Sweet, soft ending, I promise~

Even shuffling along, Sherlock’s pace outstrips John’s easily. He’s halfway up the stairs to 221B as John bolts the front door behind them against the rain roaring outside, his feet dragging and thumping on every step. A shushing sound fills the hall from where Sherlock leans heavily on the wall in his windbreaker, sliding against the old wallpaper. 

John just catches Mrs. Hudson peeking out a crack in her door. He offers her a grim smile but shakes his head, letting her know Sherlock is probably going to live, but he’s just as likely to fly off the handle and John can’t protect her while he’s trying to protect Sherlock from himself. 

“John!” Sherlock barks from upstairs and she rolls her eyes.

“You be careful now, don’t you let him push you around,” she whispers.

“When have I ever?” John says, a half smile pulling at his mouth. 

She huffs a laugh, drowned out by Sherlock roaring John’s name again and a sound that is definitely Sherlock hurling himself at the door and sliding down to the floor. 

Mrs. Hudson and John share one more small smile and she closes and bolts her door as he trudges up the stairs. 

Sure enough, Sherlock is in a pool at the base of the door, looking like a wretched wet cat. He’s tightly curled into himself, his eyes glass bright and angry through the curtain of his dirty hair. He’s kicked his shoes off on the landing, bare feet flexing against the wood in agitation. 

“God you’re slow,” he mutters.

John ignores him. The door isn’t locked, it never is, so apparently Sherlock is beyond operating a doorknob at the moment, a clear and interesting indicator of his current mental state. John turns the handle and shoves the door open in one swift move so that Sherlock sprawls back into 221B, his head thumping onto the wooden floor with enough force that John knows he’ll have a bruise. 

He lays there a moment, dazed and seething, and John steps over him neatly, not offering to help.

John busies himself in the flat, hanging up his coat, shaking the rain out of his hair, peering through the mail Mrs. Hudson left on the table, flipping the kettle on and pulling down mugs and tea. Sherlock lays in a pile on the floor so long John almost wonders if he fell asleep, but eventually he stirs, heaving himself up with judicial help from the door frame. 

John knows Sherlock is watching him move around the kitchen, and out of the corner of his eye he catches Sherlock trying to take a step forward, only to latch onto the door frame again. 

“Need some help over there?” John asks, leaning against the counter with his teacup. 

Sherlock, honest to god, sticks his tongue out. The scrunched, petulant face and damp curls in his eyes make him look like an overgrown toddler.

“Yes, very mature. Come have some tea. You look like a corpse Lestrade drug out of the Thames.”

“That’s ridiculous, drowned bodies are bloated.”

Indeed, Sherlock looks closer to skeleton than drowning victim, every dip of him shadowed deeply, his eyes deep set and ringed with exhaustion. He’s shivering in fits and starts and the doctor in John already starts racking up symptoms and ailments. 

“Well I’m sure we could fix that,” John says lightly, just an edge to his voice letting Sherlock know he’s not entirely beyond the idea of dragging him back out and tossing him in the river for Lestrade to find properly. “Are you hungry? Perhaps you should change first, you’re dripping on the rug.” 

Sherlock doesn’t move from his white knuckle grip on the doorframe. “Are you sure you don’t want to call Molly?” he asks in a mocking voice, ignoring John’s question. 

“Don’t be rude Sherlock, Molly cares for you even when you treat her like dirt. She deserves better and she happens to be taking care of Rosie who I wouldn’t let within 100 yards of you at the moment.”

Sherlock makes an aborted movement, half shrug and half bodily eye roll, which almost sends him backwards, scrabbling at the door frame to keep upright. 

“Besides,” John continues, knowing full well Sherlock isn’t listening, “I’m a doctor too, in case you forgot, and I’ve seen you high enough times to know when you are on the come down.”

Sherlock looks around the room, eyes narrowed, for approximately 2 entire minutes before he suddenly turns back to John and says, “What?”

“Your tea is on the table,” John replies, settling into his armchair with his own cup and sighing in relief. 

They sit in silence for some time, only the rustle of John’s newspaper and Sherlock’s labored breathing to break it. Out of the corner of his eye, John catches Sherlock making several attempts to walk away from the door frame and failing each time, only upright by the grace of solid wood and his seemingly superhuman reflexes, still above average even high as a kite. 

Eventually, John can’t stand it anymore and he peeks up at Sherlock’s face. 

Sherlock looks deeply, _deeply_ miserable, staring at his own feet like they’ve betrayed him and one hand twisted tightly into his hair. John knows he hates this bit, realizing how out of sorts he is, how dirty. The inevitable scratch and pull of the wrong clothes, the tight knots in his hair, the ache and pain of things he can’t remember and time he’s lost. His mind comes back online before his body does, the weakness of transport, leaving Sherlock trapped as surely as if he were bound. 

John also knows that he’s never in a state to take care of himself, inevitably collapsing on the floor, usually the bathroom. Once Sherlock has realized he’s gross, he won’t soil the couch or his own bed, though John’s chair seems fair game when John isn’t occupying it. 

This isn’t a common occurrence by any means, especially compared to what Lestrade has let on of Sherlock’s life before John, but it’s become distressingly more common since Sherlock returned from the dead and his adventures abroad as a spy or whatever it is Mycroft’s little army gets up to. They still haven’t talked about it, not really.

When they first met, Sherlock treated the addiction like a one off, something he was above and beyond, more than human. Sherlock has grown in time, changed, fought battles of emotion and will that would have broken another man. He’s mostly come out the better for it, but a crack in the stone means things can get in now too. 

_Vulnerable_ , John’s mind whispers.

Every other time Sherlock has swanned off for drugs, it’s been on the coattails of whatever ultimatum or ticking bomb or mad case they were on. Somehow, it was less worrisome when there was a tangible, logical reason behind it. When John couldn’t judge because he succumbed to his addictions just the same, always torn between Sherlock and Mary, Mary and her past, the part of him that wants cozy sweaters and tea and the part of him more at home with a gun than a baby bottle.

Every other time there was no time to take care of Sherlock. Sherlock never let anyone take care of him anyway. They blew through it with all the whirlwind of gore and grace that is their lives. 

This time though, it came out of left field. No wind-up, no descent into mania preceding... just the quiet creep of time and Sherlock gone like a candle flame under one swift breath. 

It’s the one year anniversary of Mary’s death. 

They had been doing well. The year had gone by swiftly, full of successful cases and adventures and surprisingly delightful moments, him and Sherlock and Rosie. Sherlock had taken to Rosie rather better than any of them would have expected, though they should have seen it, another mind to talk endlessly too but never be interrupted. Rosie listens with rapt attention most days, watching Sherlock pace back and forth with a burbling smile. Molly and Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade had all taken to being godparents in stride, all John’s fears and anxieties lifted and carried on a village’s shoulders. 

But, even still, John knows that grief and anger come and go unexpectedly. For all the good they’ve accomplished, it still comes whispering out of the woodwork when he leasts expects it, a fog he can’t see the other side of. 

John has been quietly sinking beneath it for days and weeks, all his skills and senses dull and grey around the edges. Even knowing it’s happening didn’t mean he could stop it, retreating into the shadows of the flat and his own mind. Sherlock had taken to leaving him behind again, something he hadn’t done since he’d come back, but John didn’t have the energy for the chase. Molly, sharper than any of them have ever given her credit for, offers to take Rosie for the week without prompting, her eyes round and knowing. 

Once the only life in his care was his own, John let himself wallow in it. 

But, of course, Rosie wasn’t the only life in his care. 

***

John’s not an idiot. He’s not unaware of the codependent nature of his relationship with Sherlock Holmes, especially in the past year, nor is he prone to anxiety on the matter. He accepted long ago that he can’t keep Sherlock alive, because he can barely keep himself alive, and the guilt he used to feel for that has long ago melted into something softer and kinder. 

When Sherlock falls head first into his vice of choice, how can John blame him? Bubbling at the bottom of his own bottle? He’s proud of the progress they’ve made in the last year: for Rosie, for Mary, but never for themselves. 

Perhaps that’s why it never sticks.

***

John doesn’t realize how long he’s been staring into the space just over the top edge of his newspaper until Sherlock trips over a stack of books trying to get to the bathroom, sprawling roughly out on the living room floor next to John’s chair. 

“Your thoughts are depressing.” Sherlock mutters into the carpet after a few moments of tense silence. 

“Are you talking to yourself?”

Sherlock waves a hand in his general direction, “You think too loud.”

“I haven’t said anything.”

Sherlock lifts his head from the floor, his face full of utter derision.

“Fine,” John says, feeling suddenly defensive, “you can lay there all night then.”

“Fine.” Sherlock snaps back, letting his head thump back to the floor and wincing pathetically. 

The silence picks up where it left off. John’s tea has gone cold. Sherlock does actually smell quite bad and it’s starting to make itself known throughout the room. John is more tempted than he’d like to admit to pour the cold tea over Sherlock’s head. 

Sherlock jerks suddenly, must have drifted off, and scrambles at the floor, the edge of the table, a chair, to pull himself back upright, too quickly by the sick look on his face. He pulls himself through the flat by every available surface, knocking several stacks of papers and assorted objects to the floor in the process. 

The bathroom door slams, bouncing in the frame instead of sticking. Evidently Sherlock hasn’t noticed, because the tap clunks on and everything is silent again except for the rush of water. 

5 blissfully peaceful minutes later, John realizes something is wrong. The water is running but the sound hasn’t changed to suggest a body in the tub, nor has he heard Sherlock stumbling around to get his clothes off or splashing into the water. 

He moves to the door, knocking gently. 

“Sherlock?”

The silence is broken by an ear splitting scream and the unmistakable sound of a fist meeting a mirror (John knows, he still has those scars across his knuckles.) 

Sherlock gets one more punch in before John shoulders the door open, slamming the wood into Sherlock who stumbles back into the wall. Sherlock is dazed for a moment, giving time for John to get between him and the remnants of glass showered over the sink, counter, and onto the floor before Sherlock lunges at him. 

Though Sherlock’s usual grace is a long way off, he’s taller and he’s somewhat trained, which means the hits still hurt no matter how uncoordinated. John’s shoes scrape and slide over glass, and he shoves at Sherlock roughly, sending him half over the toilet, bashing his elbow painfully on the edge of the tub. 

Sherlock swears passionately, curling in on himself. He’s cut at least one of his feet, blood smeared on the floor and flecked on the walls from his cut hand. 

“Sherlock-” John starts, but as if the sound of his name is a red flag, Sherlock surges upward once more. To his surprise, Sherlock goes for the remains of the mirror instead of him, trying to elbow John aside, and John barely has the strength to hold him back. 

Sherlock strikes out haphazardly, fists and slaps, yelling incoherently. 

“Stop, Sherlock, stop!” John repeats, catching Sherlock by the wrists. Sherlock’s feet slip from under him again and John just barely manages to drag him back onto the toilet lid. 

Sherlock collapses inward, quiet and still. John has to pause for a moment, his breath heaving in his chest and adrenaline galloping in his veins. 

The soldier in John seems to run his body for the next few minutes. Once it seems like Sherlock is likely to stay still, John moves to turn off the tap, the water dangerously close to spilling over, and fetches a broom. He sweeps the shards of glass on the floor into a pile, and sets about trying to corral the rest into the sink. He’s just assessing if any more pieces are likely to fall from the wall when Sherlock finally speaks. 

From the depths of his own shadows, Sherlock whispers something half to the floor that John only just catches. 

“Do you think she knew, when she looked at me, that I was a monster?”

John drops a piece of glass in the sink with a sharp clatter that makes them both jump. 

“What?” John says, not because he didn’t hear but because he doesn’t understand. 

Sherlock turns to look up at John through the loop of his arm and tugs viciously at his own hair, like he’s punishing himself. Sherlock’s eyes have an edge of cruelty now, whether for himself or John, isn’t clear yet. 

“Mary,” he says, voice breaking on her name, “had us made right from the start.”

John looks away, returning to sweep up shards of glass. Sherlock scoffs meanly. 

“Me, an addict with a death wish. You, drowning in a bottle, probably also a death wish. Arguably high on the list of least fit guardians for a child in all of London. Beaten by a morgue registrar.”

“Sherlock, get in the bath or I’ll hold you down in it.”

“Murder would at least make this day less excessively dull.”

“You’ve been high as a kite for at least the last 48 hours, I should think you’ve had enough excitement.”

Sherlock starts wrestling with his jacket and shirt like they are strangling him, pulling desperately at the fabric, trying to pull it all up over his head in one move and only succeeding in getting tangled and tearing a few seams. When John grabs him by the sleeves he falls still and allows John to untangle him from the fabric more gently. 

Sherlock looks even more a corpse now, bloodless and sunken in the dim yellow light of the bathroom. His veins all stand out on his body, a green-blue roadmap of the simple, human workings of him beneath that mind. His arms are bruised, some healing track marks but many look like gripping hands. 

The world would look at Sherlock now and think him a fragile, translucent thing, but John’s never seen it. From the first, and through all the stitches and grazes and sprains John’s carefully tended since, John has seen the strength in Sherlock, muscles and bones all at sharp, tight wound angles, ready to explode outward. 

John watches Sherlock stumble and fall his way into the tub, heedless of his nudity and nearly braining himself on the porcelain, sending a wall of water onto the floor. He hisses angrily, pulling his cut foot back out of the bath as soon as he’s seated and dangling it over the edge of the tub, blood and water quietly dripping to the soaked floor. 

Once upon a time this would have been weird, awkward, but John’s a doctor and Sherlock is Sherlock and they’ve been through too much to wonder at the oddness of their proximity. 

Even in the beautiful clawfoot tub, Sherlock is all long bones, curled distortedly around his knees to fit inside. His knuckles leave small smears of blood on the skin poking out of the water, but John can already tell he won’t need stitches. 

John gestures wordlessly to Sherlock’s dangling foot and Sherlock only shrugs. The bones of Sherlock’s ankle feel brittle and sharp under John’s hands, but John is thankful to find the cuts there won’t need stitches either. He taps the edge of the tub, motioning for Sherlock’s other foot, which Sherlock finally lifts after a long, agonizing moment. Luckily, this one has escaped unscathed through some miracle and John lets him go gently. Sherlock lets both his pale feet sink to the bottom of the tub once more, hissing at the hot water on his cuts. 

John wants to argue but knows it’s useless. “Don’t stay in too long, your cuts need to dry and a bandage. You’re lucky no glass stuck in.”

John turns away, making himself busy laying dirty towels from the hamper on the floor and grabbing a fresh one and the first aid kit from under the sink, but when he turns back, Sherlock is just sitting there, hair hanging in his face. 

“Sherlock?” John asks quietly. 

Sherlock’s shoulders heave in sigh, the bones visibly sliding underneath his skin. 

John’s hesitation only lasts a moment. 

“I’ll be right back. Don’t drown while I’m out.”

“I’m not an idiot,” Sherlock grumbles to his back and John fights down a smile. 

“Arguable that,” he calls over his shoulder. 

He grabs the short step stool from the kitchen and a large plastic cup from the cupboard When he returns, Sherlock is staring down at his own hands intently, flexing them back and forth. John sets up the stool by the tub, sets the cup down, and drapes a towel over his lap, all without Sherlock commenting. 

“Come on Sherlock, lean back.”

Sherlock’s eyes slide from his hands to John’s face, to the cup, and back around again in a circle. He looks wary but hopeful. For all that he complains, he does enjoy being taken care of where it counts. Mrs. Hudson is proof of that. 

Sherlock slides down in the water, his pale knees breaking the surface to accommodate his torso, and closes his eyes. 

He lets John work in silence, carefully pouring water over his hair, blocking it from running down his face. Sherlock’s favorite shampoo is all mint and eucalyptus, expensive, and John works it into a silky lather. 

John has had his hair washed, in intimacy and necessity. A girlfriend when he was younger was the quiet, tactile sort and then later, all those months he couldn’t lift his left arm entirely and his right only barely, kind nurses and ever so rarely, Harry. He knows the comfort of the feeling well, the kind of thing no one asks for but most people need, apparently even Sherlock Holmes.

John feels gently around the matted sections of Sherlock’s hair, trying to get a feel for how to tackle them. It brings a sick rush to his stomach to see them, a reminder of everything that led to them in this glass and blood and water strew bathroom, ghosts between them and guilt heavy in the steamy air. 

John is loath to suggest cutting his hair, he’d never admit it but he loves Sherlock’s hair almost as much as Sherlock does. There is something that wouldn’t be quite right about him without that mop of dark curls, somehow softening the edges of him and hardening the sea foam green of his eyes all at once. A simple twist of his face, tilting those curls one way or the other, can turn Sherlock almost into entirely different people. 

John’s hands still, opening his mouth to ask, but Sherlock abruptly goes tight under his touch, trembling finely, and John finds himself saying “okay, okay” soothingly before he even realizes the unspoken conversation that’s already passed between them. 

He casts back to a vague memory of Harry as a child, horrible knots in the long hair she hated. He always wondered if she did it on purpose, as a way to force their mother to cut her hair, but John’s mom was patient and delicate each time, sitting next to the bath and gently working the knots from Harry’s hair. He tries to remember the process, mostly calling up memories of Harry yelling and his mom smiling softly.

John moves to stand and Sherlock’s hand shoots out, startlingly quick, to catch his sleeve. John looks back in surprise to find Sherlock looking panicked, a little lost, shifted like he plans to leap out of the tub after John. 

He puts a hand over Sherlock’s on his arm, “It’s okay, I’m not leaving. Do you have a comb somewhere here?”

Sherlock’s eyes roam over his face, still a little foggier than usual, but collecting data nonetheless. His grip finally slackens, John sliding from his grasp but not losing an inch of that ready-to-bolt tension about him. 

“Second drawer,” he says quietly.

John nods, retrieving a black wide tooth comb from the second drawer where it appears to be living with a tub of pomade, several small vertebrae John thinks might belong to a cat, a sewing needle, a package of violin strings, a single grapefruit spoon, a set of dentist tools, nail clippers, and a tube of aquaphor. John stares into the mess for a brief moment, wondering how a bathroom drawer can so perfectly encapsulate a single person.

Sherlock shifts in the bath, the soft slap of water against the sides bringing John back to the moment. He returns to his seat at the side of the tub and sets about working almost too much conditioner into Sherlock’s hair, slicking it back to his skull. He feels out each knot with his fingers, pulling and pressing carefully to loosen the knot before he sets the comb to it, working in short pieces from the bottom up and holding in a way that doesn’t tug at Sherlock’s scalp. 

John combs the conditioner through Sherlock’s hair, working gently. The line of Sherlock’s shoulder is tight but he is quiet, his fists clenching and unclenching along the plane of his thighs. It can’t hurt, John is being unbelievably careful not to pull from the skin, but it’s still probably a lot of stimulation for Sherlock, coming in when his mind is least guarded. 

But, as the knots start to slide and loosen in Sherlock’s hair, so do the knots in Sherlock’s body. He fractures and slides under John’s touch, stretching and sinking in the water as far as his long limbs will allow. 

The next words tumble from John’s lips before he can truly think them through.

“Mary loved you Sherlock. I-I love you. I can’t blame her for her choice to keep you safe, I would have done the same. Please stop blaming yourself.”

Sherlock hangs his head, hair obscuring his face, digging his fingers into his thighs. John runs his fingers over slick hair and muscle, trying to soothe the tenseness that has returned to Sherlock’s body. 

“I’m scared I’m going to lose you too,” John whispers between them.

Sherlock’s shoulders hitch just once under John’s touch, and he presses the heels of his hands into his eyes and then back over his skull. 

“I don’t know how to stop,” he whispers back, his voice hoarse. 

John takes Sherlock gently by the chin, urging him to look up and meet John’s eyes. 

“We’ll do it together, like always, okay?”

Sherlock’s hair slicked back in dark waves makes his face ever sharper than usual, something unearthly and dangerous about him. Through the pale lens of the water, he seems like a fae creature, a Kelpie luring John to follow beneath the surface. 

He doesn’t realize his hands are still cradling Sherlock’s face, caught in his daydream, until he notices Sherlock watching him carefully in return, a sparkle of curiosity that shows he’s coming back to himself. 

John’s so relieved to see that glimmer of Sherlock flash in the depths of those glassy, unfamiliar eyes, he almost forgets to breathe. He let’s Sherlock go, clenching his hand against the tremor that threatens there, and reaches for the cup to continue his task. Sherlock catches him by a wrist, pausing the frantic leap into motion.

Sherlock's long fingers wrap around his forearm, slick and tight, and John finds himself caught in the spell.

What happens next starts out as a kiss, pressed to the pulse in John’s wrist, Sherlock holding John’s arm in two reverent hands. John watches, frozen, as Sherlock opens his lips slightly, pantly warmly against the sensitive skin of the inside of John's arm, and proceeds to drag the hot line of his mouth up John’s wrist and over the sensitive base of his thumb. John’s thumb twitches against Sherlock’s lips and Sherlock’s tongue darts out to meet it.

“Sherlock.” John says, cursing how hoarse he sounds. 

Sherlock’s lips pull into a smile against the skin of his palm, drawing John’s hand to cradle, pressing John’s hand to the plane of his face with his own.

“Ask me about it when I’m sober,” Sherlock says, letting John’s hand slide from his grasp gently. “Don’t let me avoid the question or insult you.”

Sherlock tilts his head coyly, smiling up at John from under his lashes, looking damp and mischievous. John can’t help the smile that jumps to his face in reply. 

“Did high Sherlock just give me advice for sober Sherlock?”

Sherlock shrugs dramatically, “I like pear drops too.”

“You have a sweet tooth don’t you? Is that why you harass Mycroft so much?”

“Ugh, don’t bring up Mycroft, he gives me heartburn.”

“Now that sounds more like you,” John half laughs, leaning on the edge of the tub instead of reaching out for Sherlock’s water slick skin like he wants. “I do appreciate the openness, but I feel like you’ll be unhappy with it in a few hours.”

Sherlock sinks down into the bath, looking so much like a grumpy turtle that it sends John into a fit of laughs he thinks might actually border on hysterics. Sherlock sinks his whole head underwater, scrubbing his fingers through his hair and pointedly shaking water all over John and the floor when he emerges. He splays a large, damp hand over the curve of John’s shoulder to steady himself as he steps out of the tub, legs wobbly still.

“I’m sorry Sherlock,” John says, still smiling but finally in control of his laughter, handing Sherlock a towel.

Sherlock scoffs, tucking the towel around his waist while John drapes another over his head, scrunching water from his hair. 

John sobers for a moment, caught in the sudden intimacy of the moment. Sherlock is touchably close and impossibly far, droplets of water chasing all the sharp lines of him and bleeding envy into John’s veins. 

Before he can step back and regain his footing, Sherlock is crowded in his space, looming over John. How he manages to loom so in nothing but a towel and looking like soggy toast, John may never know, but loom Sherlock does. 

“No really,” John continues when he has his breath back, because this is important damn it! “Thank you. Thank you for being honest, the least I can do is be the same.”

He captures one of Sherlock’s hands in his own and brings it to his mouth, pressing a kiss to the delicate arch at the base of Sherlock’s pointer finger and then down and over, stopping to bite at Sherlock’s pulse, making Sherlock jump in his grip. 

When he meets Sherlock’s gaze again, the taller man looks struck, hope and desire flickering in the maelstrom of his emotions. John releases his grip on Sherlock’s hand, but Sherlock steps closer, sliding that same hand along John’s jaw and into his hair. John catches him by the waist, fingers half on damp warm skin and half on terry cloth, and pulls them together on instinct. 

Sherlock slides his mouth along John’s temple, pressing himself into John at every point he can. John turns his mouth to the curve of Sherlock’s ear, sliding his hands around to pull him closer. 

“We will talk about it when you are sober.”

Sherlock’s back jumps under his hands, a chuckle. “I’m sure it will be excruciating.”

John pulls back a little to grin at him, “Bit dangerous maybe. But, that’s half the fun, isn’t it? ”


End file.
